Competely exhausted!

I guess I am truly getting a taste of what is to come. I am like a zombie walking today. I was up last night baking until midnight and then up again at 5AM to finish off my orders. I even had time to do some creative product development this AM. After my orders where completed I worked on creating a chocolate covered pretzel variety and a variety that I am not sure what to name. It is a chocolate cupcake with chocolate butter cream dipped in mini- M&M's. Maybe we can call it chocolate covered rainbow? I will post pictures later. Well, I am off to do my Saturday chores, deliver cupcakes, spend some quality time with the family and attend a neighbor's costume party. I hope to get a nap in at some point.

Have a happy Saturday!

Akers Angels was a HUGE success!

I am pretty tired from all the baking and I have more to do tonight, so I will just entertain you with pictures of this evenings Akers Angels event. The cupcakes were a huge hit with the young and old. Harmony's doors can not open fast enough....................................

Over 310+ people came out to support the Akers family. I am sure that a great deal of money was raised. Visit www.akersangels.com to find out how you can help this deserving family.

Until tomorrow, Peace.

The Baking Marathon has begun!

I have been a baking fool for most of today. I got a late start so it is going to be a late night. My goal is to get all 250 cupcakes made before I turn in which will give me all of tomorrow morning to ice and decorate the cakes. I decided on 100 harmony vanilla in the Akers favorite colors, 50 76 dalmatian, 50 cookies and cream and 50 over the rainbow. Of course I will post pictures sometime this weekend. My oven will be on non-stop b/c I have several orders for Saturday too. Life is always good when I am baking.

Well, Chaka and I met with Mr. G, the broker about when we can take over the lease. He is targeting Nov. 15th. My head was literally spinning b/c that moves up our date by 15 days. We will see if we can get everything in place by early next week. We will have to fill out the paperwork, have the lawyer look over the lease and contact the landlord to get approved for the take over all before the 1st of November. I think I said before that my head is SPINNING. Now is the time for STRENGTH, COURAGE and most of all FAITH. I know that this is happening now, but man am I scared. One of my dearest friends seems to find humor in my anxiety. She says that I have launched major food products for several major food companies and fast food chains making them millions of dollars richer and I worry about the success of Harmony. But this is my baby. I have conceived and nurtured this baby for almost 15 years and now I am putting myself out there to be judged by the world. All of my life I have been good at what I have done for OTHER people but now it is time for me to live my dream and I am just anxiously anticipating it all. I want it to be successful, and it will be.

The timer is going off. Say a baker's prayer for me tonight!

Peace, Blessing and most of all Harmony.

Touched by an Angel

Tomorrow we meet with our broker/ Touched by an Angel guy, Mr. G. He has such a peaceful air about him that whenever I see him he reminds me of one of the many angel characters on Touched by an Angel. I fully believe that he has been placed in this part of my journey for a reason. I first located his storefront back in July and he has waited patiently until I was able to move forward. The location is prime retail space in a busy plaza in West Chester. I knew when I saw it online that this was the home of Harmony. When I found the spot I printed it out and designed a sign for Harmony Cupcakes on the front of the building (it's all about visualizing, right?) Well, I am anxiously anticipating this meeting. This will really be the first step towards Harmony feeling real.

Off to cook dinner.

Peace out.

Places to go

Today is ingredient prep day. I have to purchase all of my ingredients for the Akers event so I am off to Sam's Club and GFS. Zuhri has his first cold so today is going to be an adventure. As soon as I get the kids on the bus, I am off.

Later

C is for cookie......that's good enough for me

I spent the day baking cookies to be shipped to MD. The order consisted of a dozen each of chocolate -chip, sugar butter and oatmeal raisin cookies. I could make these in my sleep if I ever needed too. I perfected all of these recipes after high school when I owned and operated Cookies-A-Plenty. I guess you can see that I have had the entrepreneurial bug most of my life. I also operated Cookin' with Kids out of my mother's kitchen. You see way back in the early 90's I was baking up a storm and teaching kids how to cook and bake. If only someone had told me then to follow my passion and use my talent of baking to better the world (um I think my mom told me to but who listens to their mom in their late teens and early 20's, luv ya Mamacita!). No regrets though, the last 15 years have been an awesome journey and honestly I would not have been lead to Harmony if I had not had the experiences that I had at Rich Products, Campbell's Soup and Heinz. These companies were an awesome training ground for me to acquire skills, network and develop the confidence that I needed to pursue my dream. I am most grateful for my time at PPI, a division of Heinz. After all it is PPI that brought me and the fam back to the midwest. The people were also genuinely good (mostly). Though my time there was VERY trying(it nearly killed me), it made me into a tougher cookie than I already was. I met Mo& JT (my big bro and sis), Tanja P(my sistafriend in Nashville and the best person I even managed), Maria M(my jewish sistafriend who I shared many tears and projects with), Mossie B (the granny of PPI who gives the best hugs) and of course the ladies in the lab. Without them I would not be experiencing Harmony so soon. I also got a glimpse of who I could become if I continued to defer my dream, I need not mention names. Anywho, I am ready to close that chapter of my life and move on. My time at PPI-Heinz was HELL but mainly a blessing b/c now I know what Harmony truly is.

Until tomorrow, Peace.

Somewhere over the rainbow.........way up high

It is official, the Over the Rainbow cupcake is a keeper as is. Everyone at Chaka's job LOVED the cupcakes. I am glad that I kept the recipe simple. In person, the cupcakes where really stunning. The delicate almond flavor was a winner too. Nalah-B also adored the rainbow fairy dust. She said it added a very nice touch. This is just so much fun! Listening to people's feedback just affirms that Harmony is going to be a big hit. Here is another picture for you to enjoy. I think I may just include this cupcake for the Akers Event on Friday. Well, I am off to make more cookies. I will post pictures when I get done.

Cheers.

Rose are red........Cupcakes are good

Here are 2 more of my weekend cupcakes. The flowers were made by Linda at Cinci Cake and Candy. I love the simplicity of the rose. These are Harmony vanilla with the BEST vanilla butter cream. I am not a huge fan of butter cream (I love the actual cupcake naked) but everyone keeps telling me that my butter cream is "da bomb" and I should bottle is as a Taste Teaser for Pure Romance. I tried to tell our marketing team at Heinz that they were missing out on the "adult topping" market but they would not listen, they could have re-invented the use of ketchup. Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm.

Off to bake and start dinner.

I dream of Cupcakes

Is it normal to dream of cupcakes? I guess it must be. I had a restful night of sleep where I actually remembered my dream. In my dream, I was dancing around the kitchen singing about cupcake creations. The kids where singing and dancing along and things were splendid. I made a cool breeze cupcake that consisted of a chocolate cake with a deep dark mint chocolate ganache center topped with cool peppermint butter cream dipped in chocolate. Perhaps this was triggered by my discussion with Nalah-B at bedtime about winter cupcake flavors. It was really kinda weird. I did get a cupcake idea out of it though.

Well, I am washing clothes and continuing to get my house de-cluttered and organized. I was esctatic b/c Chaka finally started to tackle the garage. I hate to say it but we still had a few boxes packed from when we moved into this house a year and a half ago. It is coming along and I hope to be able to park both cars in the garage this winter (if it ever comes).

Onto Harmony business, I have a few calls to make today. I need to call Garth and set up a meeting to get the plans for the storefront and talk about when we will transfer the lease over into our names. I also spoke with Dee at the Cincinnati Urban League and she was really helpful. I have a meeting with her next week and hope to gain some insight on how to secure additional funds for Harmony. More on that later.

Peace for now.

Somewhere over the rainbow..........

Here are a few of my Over the rainbow cupcakes without the multi color butter cream (I ran out of parchment paper) and without the skittles on top (Nalah and Amari ate them all).

These were made with leftover batter. I had an idea of making an M&M cookie with the M&M's arranged in an arch to look like a rainbow. They did not look like a rainbow at all, the M&M's spread too much. I decided to use rainbow fairy dust instead. They did not come out too bad. I will see if I can get some better pictures tomorrow.

Nite for good this time.

Baking up a storm

The weekend is coming to an end and I have been baking and baking and baking.

I have a true glimpse of the months to come at Harmony. I made close to 200 cupcakes this weekend to fill orders. I also made my oh so popular cookie pops. To top it off I still have 3 dozen cookies to make tomorrow for an order that needs to ship to NJ. Next week will end with the Akers Angels event where Harmony will make its Lakota Schools debut by pleasing the palates of more than 300 people. The great thing about all this baking is that it did not feel like work at all. I enjoyed every moment of it and manged to get to bed every night at a decent hour. I even managed to do some experimenting with my Over the Rainbow cupcake. I will post some photos of those tomorrow. Enjoy the photos of some of this weekends cupcakes. For now I am off to bed early.

Peace and Blessing.